Abstract:

How does the anticipation of bias change the behavior of affected agents? This paper provides evidence on this question by studying the decisions of referees and coaches in football (soccer) leagues in Israel over 15 years. We first provide robust evidence that referees exhibit ethnic (Arab/Jewish) in-group bias in penalty card decisions, which affects aggregate game outcomes. We then show that coaches respond to anticipated bias by increasing the number of players matching the ethnicity of the referee in the starting lineups of their teams and that the response is stronger when the anticipated bias is larger.